Author . 



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Title 



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18—47872-1 OPO 



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Major General 

Grenville M. Dodge 

(1831-1916) 

Maker of History 
in the Great West 

GEORGE F, ASHBY 





"Were American Newcomen to do naught else^ our 
work is well done if we succeed in sharing with 
America a strengthened inspiration to continue 
the struggle towards a nobler Civilization — 
through wider knowledge and understanding of the 
ho'peSy ambitions J and deeds of leaders in the fast 
who have upheld Civilization^ s material progress. 
As we look backwardy let us look forward." 

CHARLES PENROSE 

Senior Vice-President for North America 
The Newcomen Society of England 



-^ 



This statement, crystallizing a hroad purpose of the Society, was first read 
at the Newcomen Meeting at New York World's Fair on August 3, 1939, 
when American Newcomen were guests of The British Government 



"Actorum Memores simtd affectamtts Agenda" 






Major General Grenville M. Dodge (1831-1916) 
Maker of History in the Great West 



h -^^^-^ 



-^. 




"Thinking of General Dodge, we think of the Engi- 
neer and Builder 3 and it is as such that his name 
indelibly is written in the history of the Great West. 
The engineering achievement which gives his name its 
most prominent place was the location and projection of 
the Union Pacific Railroad, completed in May, 1869." 

— George F. Ashby 



% % 



"^^^>*1*f^^a^ 




"At the age of twenty, Dodge left Norwich University 
in Vermont, a military college of heritage, as a civil and 
military engineer j and thereupon moved to the State of 
Illinois, with his first employment as an axman In an 
engineering party on the Illinois Central Railroad." 

— George F. Ash by 



1? '^ 



Major General 
Grenville M. Dodi 
(1831-1916) 

Mailer of History 
in the Great West 

GEORGE FlASHBY 

MEMBER OF THE NEWCOMEN SOCIETY 

PRESIDENT 

UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY 

OMAHA 



:e 




THE NEWCOMEN SOCIETY OF ENGLAND 
AMERICAN BRANCH NEW YORK 

1947 



Cofyright, 1947 
George F. Ashby 

1? 

Pennission to abstract is granted 
frovided frofer credit is allowed 

The Neiucomen Society^ as a body, 
is not responsible for opinions 
expressed in tJie foil owing pages 






First Printing: November k^^j 
Second Printing: November 1947 




T/tis Netvcomen Address, based upon contem- 
porary records preserved by Union Pacific 
Railroad Cojnpany, was delivered at a Na- 
tional Nevjcomen Luncheon, at which Mr. 
Ashby was guest of honor, held in the Ball- 
room of The Pierre at New York, N.Y., 
U.S.A., on November 25, tg^y 

% 



EET rP, PRINTED AN'D B0U1«) 

IN THE UNITED STATES OT AMERICA @ gS |1 

AT 
PRINCETON UNTVERSITY PRESS 



pLxLJQ.C,.At,-^^ 



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"Clearly, Major General Grenville M. Dodge must 

rank high with the men who made this Nation. What he 

did, at the time he did it, was to further an enterprise 

which would serve the Nation as a binding tie between 

the East and the West. What he did, as the lapse of just 

a few years proved, was this and more! It was to civilize 

and people the great domain west of the Missouri River 

and to bring the West into a parity of importance with 

the East." 

— George F. Ashby 



% % 



Biographical Sketch 
of The Author 

In October 1866, America witnessed a long-distance railroad ex- 
cursion "the like of which never had been projected in this, or any 
other country P^ Invitations were extended to the President of the 
United States and members of his Cabinet, to all members of Cofp- 
gresSy Foreign Ministers, military and naval commanders, and to 
the -principal railroad men and leading capitalists throughout the 
country, "to join in a grand excursion from New York City to the 
one-hundredth meridian, in the Great Platte Valley, a distance of 
about 1700 miles, and more than half way across the continent. 
The diferent lines of connecting railroads, steamboats, and stages 
between New York and Omaha, were placed at disposal of the 
Union Pacific Railroad. The party, consisting of about 100 persons, 
left New York on Monday evening, October 15th, by way of the 
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania Central Railroads, to Pittsburgh; 
and the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad to Chicago, 
where they arrived in high spirits on the following Wednesday 
evening. Accompanied by the Great Western Light Guard Band, 
the party started from Chicago on Thursday morning, by way of 
the Chicago-Burlington and Quincy, and the Hannibal and Saint 
Joseph Railroads, and arrived at St. Joseph on the following Fri- 
day evening. For the journey of 250 miles to Otnaha, two of the 
largest class Missouri River packets — the ^Denver* Captain Wad^r- 
dell, and the ^Colorado,* Captain Hooper — with an additional 
band of music on board, were in readiness. With bands playing and 
colors flying, the travellers steamed up the great Missouri River, 
which, for many hundred miles of its turbid, snaggy, barry, wind- 
ing course, forms the western boundary of the Atlantic portion of 
the United States." The foregoing extract was written in February 
1867 , just 80 years ago. The great excursion was planned in order 
that a record-breaking progress of railroad construction made by 
General G. M. Dodge "should not only be suitably advertised to 
the world, but satisfactorily verified by the proper officers of the 
Government, and members of Congress." Today, none better could 



Biographical Sketch 
of The Author 

review the life and work and influence of General Dodge than 
George Franklin Ash by, President y Union Pacific Railroad 
Company. Native of North Carolina, Mr. Ashby has been identi- 
fied with railroading during over 40 years: alike in the South y the 
Easty the Middle Westy and the Pacific Coast. Widely known in 
American transportation y he presides over the great pioneer system 
which became part of our first transcontinental railway y linking the 
East and the West. He speaks both with sympathetic understand- 
ing and with authority upon the life of General Dodge — 
^^ Maker of History in the Great West." Mr. Ashby is 
a Vice-Chairman of the Nebraska Committecy in 
The Newcomen Society of England. 





^///// ^^ 



My fellow members of Newcom.en: 

THERE is in use, or misuse, a current hard- worked and 
overworked phrase, somewhat frayed at the edges: "Let^s 
be realistic about this." There is a temptation to say of the 
subject of this sketch that he was a realist. But I resist the tempta- 
tion. The staid old word, before it began to roll glibly from the 
tongue like a slang phrase, might have been an apt and terse de- 
scription of the soldier, engineer, statesman, executive, who, dur- 
ing the days of original construction, carried the title of Chief 
Engineer of Union Pacific. Let me rather draw in bare outline this 
picture of Major General Grenville M. Dodge, United States 
Army. 

General Dodge was a practical man. He thought his way 
through, before he rushed into action. He envisioned the obstacles 
that might lie in the path mapped out, but at the same time en- 
visioned ways to overcome such obstacles. Once his plan was set, he 



proceeded to carry It to completion with dispatch, resourcefulness, 
thoroughness, and courage. This picture, sketchy as it is, will clas- 
sify the man, and from experience with men in the same classifica- 
tion you can, to a large extent, fill in the outline. The picture, 
which history shows is remarkably true, portrays my kind of man. 
My wish is that the Union Pacific may always include in its mana- 
gerial staff men of such a type. 

The task here is divided into three parts: A review of the life, 
the work, and influence of General Dodge. 

The first two parts will be of simple fulfillment. Vital statistics 
and the story of Dodge's successive occupations and activities are 
readily available and in more than ample detail. 

The third, the part which most justifies the study of any man 
who has made history, is what throws the mental machinery of a 
biographer into low gear. What has been the influence of General 
Dodge? What has been the influence of any man whose name has 
lived beyond the date of his obituary notice? Among all the in- 
genious measures and meters which physiologists and psycholo- 
gists and philosophers have invented to measure the various phases 
of man's physical, mental, and spiritual being and their effects, un- 
fortunately there is no meter by which to measure that peculiar 
quality which radiates from a man and spreads either a beneficial 
or a detrimental effect upon his own age or ages beyond. The in- 
fluence exists: it is recognized, it is felt, even though it cannot be 
analyzed. Influence, so often, is of the spirit. 

Thinking of General Dodge, we think of the Engineer and 
Builder J and it is as such that his name indelibly is written in the 
history of the Great West. The engineering accomplishment which 
gives his name its most prominent place was the location and pro- 
jection of the Union Pacific Railroad, across the plains and over 
the mountain ranges to Promontory, a short distance west of 
Ogden, Utah, where the Union Pacific from the East and the Cen- 
tral Pacific from the West met on May 10 y 1869, to complete the 
transcontinental span of railroad which virtually can be credited 

[ 9 ] 



with the tremendously important fact that the United States of 
America as a unified nation, looks out upon both the Atlantic and 
Pacific Oceans. General Dodge exhibits his pride in his profession 
of civil engineer in an address delivered in later years before the 
Western Society of Civil Engineers. In the opening sentence, 
Dodge gives expression to a truth, which if expanded to broaden 
in its reference a more extended engineering field, would find re- 
sponse in the hearts of civil engineers today. He said: "The work 
of the civil engineer in developing our country and in the Civil 
War has never been comprehended or proper tribute paid to it." 

Yet, even in skimming through the life history of General 
Dodge, and the limit of our time requires that we only skim, we 
find a variety of activities important in themselves, which took 
Dodge temporarily out of the engineering field. 

Grenville M. Dodge, of English descent, was born April 12, 
1 83 1 at Danvers, Massachusetts. He died January 3, 191 6 at 
Council Bluffs, Iowa. 

At the age of twenty, Dodge left Norwich University in Ver- 
mont, a military college of heritage, as a civil and military engi- 
neer j and thereupon moved to the State of Illinois. His first 
employment was as an axman in an engineering party on the Illi- 
nois Central Railroad. He left the Illinois Central and went to the 
Rock Island as an axman under Peter A. Dey, who was division 
engineer, stationed at Tiskilwa, Illinois. Mr. Dey was promoted 
to Chief Engineer of the Mississippi & Missouri Railroad (later a 
part of the Rock Island System), and took Dodge to Iowa as his 
principal assistant. Dodge developed a profound admiration for 
Dey, whom he recognized as one of the most prominent engineers 
in the country, known for his great ability, his uprightness, and 
the square dealing he gave everyone. Although it cannot be said 
that Dey was responsible for Dodge's appointment to the position 
of Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific, yet to the extent of the 
training Dey gave Dodge and the responsibilities he placed upon 

[ 10 ] 



the young man's shoulders and too the duty assigned by Dey to 
Dodge to explore west of the Missouri, Dey at least laid the 
groundwork for Dodge's appointment. 

In 1854, Dodge moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa. There he es- 
tablished the banking house of Baldwin & Dodge, which later was 
merged into the Pacific National Bank, of which he became presi- 
dent. This bank still stands under the designation of Council Bluffs 
Savings Bank. 

In 1857, a financial stringency developed, the effect of which 
was severe and country-wide. Civil Engineering activities were 
seriously curtailed. In that year Dodge, then only twenty-six, with 
two other young I o wans, Baldwin and Pegram, organized a 
freighting enterprise, which they conducted until 1861, operating 
in the Platte Valley between the Missouri River and Denver. 

In 1856, Dodge organized and equipped the Council Bluffs 
Guards of which he was elected Captain. He retained his interest 
in this organization in after years, when it was then known as the 
Dodge Light Guards. It became the nucleus of a regiment of Iowa 
infantry which fought brilliantly and with severe losses in the 
First World War. 

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Dodge went into serv- 
ice with 600 other civil engineers who were graduates of Norwich 
University, all of whom became commissioned officers. Dodge, 
himself, was commissioned Colonel of the 4th Iowa Infantry. He 
participated in a number of major engagements in campaigns un- 
der Generals Grant, Sherman, and McPherson; was commissioned 
a Brigadier General in March, 1862, and, on June 7, 1864, a 
Major General. He supplemented his military duties as a soldier 
by the exercise for war needs of his skill and ingenuity as a civil 
engineer. Among other projects he directed the rebuilding of the 
Mobile and Ohio Railroad and the Richfield and Decatur Line, 
and constructed a number of extensive pontoon bridges in strategic 
locations. He was severely wounded in the Battle of Atlanta, in 
1864. 

[ II 1 



In December, 1864, Major General Dodge was assigned to the 
command of the Department of Missouri, at St. Louis. In Janu- 
ary, 1865, the Department of Kansas having been added to his 
jurisdiction, he was ordered to Fort Leavenworth to take charge 
of a campaign against the hostile Indians, to reopen the mail and 
stage routes, and to restore the telegraph line, recently built by the 
Creightons, which the Indians had partially destroyed. Dodge 
himself led this expedition and, in spite of the most severe winter 
conditions, restored the telegraph in March, and the stage and 
wagon routes by the end of April. Perkins, in his book, "Trails y 
Rails and War: The Life of General G. M. Dodge ^^ relates that 
when Creighton reported to Washington headquarters the re- 
sumption of wire service. General Grant telegraphed: "Where is 
Dodge?" Creighton replied: "Nobody knows where he is, but 
everybody knows where he has been." 

Expand this preceding paragraph by enthusiastic research into 
the ways and means by which so much could be accomplished un- 
der the leadership of one man who faced the hardships and dan- 
gers of a scarcely known country and of a hostile people who 
looked upon the inroads by the White Man as the beginning of a 
campaign to take from the Indian the wide range of the earth's 
surface which he had for ages regarded as his own. With such ex- 
pansion, this one paragraph will afford sufficient material upon 
which to build a thrilling story of courage, resourcefulness, and 
adventure; which in itself will far exceed in the telling the time 
which can be devoted to this present sketch. I stress such point be- 
cause this review falls far short of a biografhy of the many-sided 
pioneer who filled each moment of his active years with such an 
overflow of energy as to make many a phase of his life the basis of 
a story of intriguing interest. 

We must devote a few moments more to enumeration of certain 
activities of General Dodge after the construction of the Union 
Pacific had been completed, and then by way of filling up the gap 
between the phases of General Dodge's life prior to the construc- 
tion of the Union Pacific and those after the completion of that 

[ 12 ] 



construction, I desire to return to the work which as already noted 
afforded him his greatest historical prominence: the location and 
projection of the Union Pacific. 

After completion of the Union Pacific in 1869, Dodge, with the 
financial backing for a time of Thomas A. Scott, railroad financier 
of Philadelphia and Vice-President of The Pennsylvania Rail- 
road, and later and more extensively with the backing of Jay 
Gould, projected and constructed numerous railroad lines in the 
Southwest, among them the Texas & Pacific, parts of the Missouri- 
Kansas-Texas and the International & Great Northern, the Fort 
Worth & Denver City. Likewise, he acquired the Denver, Texas 
& Gulf, which became part of the Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf, 
organized in 1890, and of which Dodge became president. 

Between 1874 and 1879, he spent much time abroad and during 
this period he was selected by President Grant to confer with the 
German and Italian engineers who were building the famous St. 
Gothard tunnel under the Alps. Dodge was consulted by the Im- 
perial Russian Government in connection with the project of the 
Trans-Siberian Railroad. 

General Dodge was a director of the Union Pacific during many 
of the years between 1870 and 1897. 

In November, 1866, Dodge was elected to the U.S. Congress 
from the First District of Iowa, and served through 1867 and 
1868. He declined renomination. 

Let us swing to the building of the Union Pacific. I have no in- 
tention of injecting into this Newcomen address a history of the 
Union Pacific, except to the extent, a very broad extent it is true, 
that such history is linked with the life of General Dodge. Where- 
fore, there is no place for the story of Asa Whitney, who in the 
1840's and 50's energetically advocated the construction of a 
transcontinental railroad to the Pacific Coast. Nor is there place for 
extended recognition of the courageous financial adventurers who 
arranged the financing of a line of railroad across the Wilderness 

[ 13 1 



and across the Great American Desert. Even the keenest imagina- 
tion would, at that time, be strained to a breaking point to conjure 
up, not only in the near, but even in the remote, future, sufficient 
business on the line proposed to be constructed, to pay a dividend 
on the investment. But even as the apparently sterile lands in the 
West change overnight to lands of abundant fertility when nur- 
tured by the life-giving waters of irrigation, so the wilderness and 
the desert changed almost overnight to a national storehouse of 
grain and vegetables and livestock and timber and coal and other 
minerals, now that a means of convenient distribution had been 
established by the pioneer Union Pacific, followed by the con- 
struction of other railroads once a precedent had been established. 
General Dodge and his associates built that pioneer railroad 
through the wilderness and across the desert. Can we say that his 
spirit, his influence, gave heart to the other pioneers who set them- 
selves up along the line of that pioneer railroad and introduced 
the rest of the Nation to that vast area of potential resource and 
wealth? 

'^ '^ 

In 1852, the Mississippi & Missouri Railroad Company was or- 
ganized to build a line westward across the State of Iowa. The 
principals connected with this line were Henry Farnham and 
Thomas C. Durant. Peter A. Dey was Chief Engineer. In 1853, 
Dey gave orders for an examination of the country west of the 
Missouri River. This was to determine where the Mississippi and 
Missouri (later the Rock Island) line crossing Iowa should ter- 
minate on the Missouri River, in order to take advantage of, and 
perhaps become a part of, the prospective line running west up the 
great Platte Valley. Dodge became chief of the party making the 
examination. Later, Farnham and Durant asked Dodge to con- 
tinue his explorations as to the best route for a railroad to the Pa- 
cific. Dodge was aware, and without doubt took full advantage of 
the experiences and observations of the previous explorers, notably 
Captain Stansbury, who in 1850 traversed the approximate route 
afterwards adopted for the Union Pacific line. From the Mor- 
mons, from many plainsmen, fur trappers and mountain men of 
the period among whom was Jim Bridger, with whom Dodge 

[ 14 ] 



formed a lifelong friendship, Dodge was enabled to make maps 
and to chart an itinerary of a line from Council Bluffs through to 
Utah, California, and Oregon. 

In August, 1859, Dodge had just arrived in Council Bluffs from 
an exploring trip to the westward, and it happened that, at the 
old "Pacific House," President Lincoln was stopping at the time. 
He met Dodge and drew from him all the latter knew of the coun- 
try west and also the results of his reconnaissances. As a result of 
that interview. President Lincoln called General Dodge to Wash- 
ington after the passage of the 1862 Pacific Railroad Act which, 
among other things, provided that the President should fix the 
eastern terminus of the Union Pacific. The President wished to 
consult with General Dodge in the matter of fixing such a terminus. 

In 1863, Durant instructed Engineer Peter A. Dey to organize 
parties for immediate surveys to determine the line from the Mis- 
souri River up the Platte Valley over the first range of mountains 
known as the Black Hills, and to examine the Wasatch Range. 

Ground was broken at Omaha for the beginning of the railroad 
on the second day of December ^ 1863. A controversy arose between 
Mr. Dey and Colonel Silas Seymour, Consulting Engineer, who 
appears to have had considerable authority, as to the location of the 
line out of Omaha and for a short distance west. Because of vigor- 
ous disagreement with the officers of the company over major mat- 
ters of policy, involving the location of the line and the construc- 
tion contracts, Dey submitted his resignation late in December, 
1864. Upon Dey's resignation, D. H. Ainsworth, a former engi- 
neer of the Mississippi & Missouri Railroad, was assigned to take 
up the location work. At the same time, the officers of Union Pa- 
cific requested General Dodge to return and take charge of the 
work. He then was in command of the United States forces on the 
plains in Indian campaigns, and General Grant was not willing that 
he should leave j so he finished his work there and went to Omaha 

[ 15 ] 



on the first day of May, 1866, assuming the duties of Chief Engi- 
neer of the Union Pacific. He remained in such position until 
January, 18 70. 

The choice of General Dodge for the post of Chief Engineer 
was a wise and logical one, not only because of proven natural 
ability and previous experience as a locating engineer, besides his 
knowledge of railroad construction under difiicult conditions de- 
rived from military service during the Civil War, and insight into 
the characteristics and habits of the Indian tribes gained in cam- 
paigns on the Plains in 1865-66, but more especially by reason of 
broad knowledge acquired in years of exploration of the character 
and formation of the mountain regions through which the line 
must be constructed. Dodge had the benefit, too, of reconnaissances 
and surveys undertaken earlier in the '6o's by his friend and for- 
mer superior Peter A. Dey. 

When General Dodge accepted appointment as Chief Engineer 
he must have had in mind the unsatisfactory experience of his 
predecessor, Peter A. Dey, with Vice-President Thomas C. Durant 
and Consulting Engineer Silas Seymour. Perkins, Dodge's biog- 
rapher, dramatizes General Dodge's insistence that he have ple- 
nary authority by crediting him with the following statements to 
Durant: "I will become Chief Engineer only on condition that I 
be given absolute control in the field. ... I have been in the army 
long enough to know the disastrous effects of divided commands. 
You are about to build a railroad through a country that has 
neither law nor order and whoever heads the work as chief engi- 
neer must be backed up. There must be no divided interests; no 
independent heads out West, and no railroad masters in New 
York." Whether these quoted words were approximately those of 
Dodge himself is of no particular moment, since the independence 
which General Dodge exhibited in carrying out his work as Chief 
Engineer is in itself evidence that his position was thoroughly un- 
derstood at the outset. This attitude of General Dodge towards 
the tremendous project he was undertaking and his own self-con- 
fidence that he could drive it through successfully "on his own," 

[ 16 1 



afford, in my opinion, the best insights into the rugged character 
of the man. 

IS "i? 

The location of the Union Pacific line under Dodge's direction 
was adopted after most painstaking research. Dodge's reports say 
it resulted from 25,000 miles of reconnaissance surveys and 75,- 
000 miles of actual instrumental surveys! The outstanding engi- 
neering accomplishment under Dodge's supervision was the loca- 
tion of the Union Pacific line over the Black Hills, west of 
Cheyenne, and over the Wasatch Range. 

The good judgment and engineering efficiency exhibited by 
General Dodge in locating the line under most trying circum- 
stances have earned flattering recognition in the engineering and 
railroad world. From 1899 to 1905, certain revisions in the orig- 
inal location were made by J. B. Berry, Chief Engineer of Union 
Pacific during those years, who pays the following tribute to Gen- 
eral Dodge: "Taking into consideration the existing conditions 
2,S years ago, lack of maps of the country, hostility of the Indians, 
which made United States troops necessary for protection of sur- 
veying parties, difficult transportation, excessive cost of labor, un- 
certainty as to probable amount of traffic, limited amount of 
money, and necessity to get the road built as soon as possible, it 
can be said, with all our present knowledge of the topography of 
the country, that the line was located with very great skill." 

Indeed I should like to quote liberally from General Dodge's 
own story of **How We Built The Union Pacific Railway y" which, 
together with other papers by or about Dodge, was printed by the 
Government Printing Office in 1910, as Senate Document No. 
447, Sixty-first Congress, Second Session. There is many an epi- 
sode recounted which grips the imagination and stirs one's admira- 
tion for the modest hero of the tale who wrote his story in a most 
matter of fact way. I should like to repeat in detail how the sur- 
veying party of eighteen or twenty men, all armed and drilled, 
and protected against hostile Indians by a military escort of from 

[ 17 1 



ten men to a company, under a competent officer, was the vanguard 
of this westward march of Civilization} how the location party 
was followed by the construction corps j how up to November, 
1867, when the Chicago & North Western was completed into 
Council Bluffs, the building of the road was limited each year to 
material that could be brought up the Missouri River aboard 
steamboats during three months' navigation} how in the advancing 
field all supplies for the work of the construction corps had to be 
hauled from the end of the track, occasioning enormous wagon 
transportation. But I must stop here before the temptation becomes 
too strong, to repeat many other intensely interesting passages of 
Dodge's story. 

% '^ 

In personal characteristics. Dodge was intensely human. He 
kept through a long life the friendship of Peter Dey, who had be- 
come chairman of the board of railroad commissioners of Iowa; of 
Jim Bridger, whom he shielded from want in old age and over 
whose grave he erected a monument to the memory of the famous 
scout and plainsman; of General Grant, for whom, in his quiet 
way, he did much to relieve the tragic distress of declining years. 

In the files of many men who have risen to prominence having 
fought their way through — in many instances against men who 
envied their rise — will undoubtedly be found letters and other 
documents sometimes casting severe reflections upon the character 
and reputation of contemporaries. General Dodge's files were no 
exception. However, to impress upon you another admirable trait 
in the character of the man, I desire to quote, from General 
Dodge's will, a certain paragraph for which long research into the 
contents of the world of testamentary documents would undoubt- 
edly fail to find a duplicate! The man's simple sincerity and un- 
varnished honesty and charity are breathed forth from these lines: 
"As my life has been a busy one and I have engaged in many en- 
terprises and held many military, civil, and official positions, and 
persons in high official and civil positions have given me their con- 
fidence, there may be in my large correspondence private and other 
matters that would, if made public, give some person pain; and I, 



therefore, direct that not a word or line written to me that would 
reflect upon anyone or give anyone the right to complain shall ever 
be published or made public in any way." 

Clearly, Major General Grenville M. Dodge must rank high 
with the men who made this Nation. What he did, at the time he 
did it, was to further an enterprise which would serve the Nation 
as a binding tie between the East and the West. What he did, as 
the lapse of just a few years proved, was this and more! It was to 
civilize and people the great domain west of the Missouri River 
and to bring the West into a parity of importance with the East. 
When the project was started, there was clearly evident the need 
for a man of General Dodge's qualifications. He was the man of 
the hour; and the memory oj that hour will not fade so long as 
railroads traverse the territory first served by the pioneer: Union 
Pacific. 

The End 



% 




.*-A' <si-> '--^.i?^ 



^^Actor-mn Meinores simul 
affectamus Agenda!" 



I 19 I 



»,•»„» J •♦>. 




^% 



This Newcomen Address, based ufon contemforary records 
preserved by the Union Pacijic Railroad bearing upon the life of 
General Dodge^ was delivered at a National Newcomen Luncheon y 
held in honor of Union Pacijic Railroad Company j in the Ball- 
room, of The Pierre at New Yorky N.Y., U.S.A., on November 25, 
1947. Mr. Ash by, the guest of honor, was introduced by W. Dale 
Clark, President, Omaha National Bank, Director, Union Pacific 
Railroad Company, and Chairman oj the Nebraska Committee, in 
American Newcomen. The luncheon was presided over by the 
Senior Vice-President for North America, in this interna- 
tional society. Mr. Ash by is a V ice-Chairman of the Nebraska 
Committee, in The N ewcomen Society oj England, a roster oj 
whose regional Office Bearers is given in the jollowing pages: 




I 20 ] 




THE NEWCOMEN SOCIETY OF ENGLAND 
NEBRASKA COMMITTEE 

C hairman 
W. Dale Clark, Esqre. 

President, The Omaha National Bank 
Omaha 

V ice-Chairmen 

George F. Ash by, Esqre. 

President, Tlu Union Pacific Railroad Company 
Omaha 

The Rt. Rev. Howard R. Brinker, D.D., S.T.D. 

The Bishop of Nebraska 
Omaha 

R. E. Campbell, Esqre. 

President, Miller Gf Paine, Inc. 
Lincoln 

John B. Cook, Esqre. 

President, Cook Packing Company 
Scotts Bluff 

J. E. Davidson, Esqre. 

Former President, Nebraska Pozver Company 
Omaha 

George W. Holmes, Esqre. 

President, TIte First National Bank of Lincoln 
Lincoln 

I 21 ] 



WlLLARD D. HOSFORD, Esqve. 

Vice-President & General Manager 

John Deere Plow Company 

Omaha 

Gene Huse, Esgre. 

Publisher 
''The Norfolk Dailv News'* 
Norfolk ' 

Colonel J. Francis McDermott 

Vice-President 

The First National Bank of Omaha 

Omaha 

Wallace Robertson, Esqre. 

President, Beatrice National Bank 
Beatrice 

Treasurer 

Ellsworth Moser, Esqre. 

Executive Vice-President 

The United States National Bank 

Omaha 

Secretary 
Dr. Rowland Hayses 

President 

The University of Omaha 

Omaha 

-g 

F. N. Jean Gindorff, Esqre. ^ ex-officio 

Harriman, Ripley & Company, Inc., New York 

Francis B. Whitlock, Esqre. y ex-officio 

Vice-President, Central Hanover Bank & Trust Company, New York 

Elliott H. Lee, Esqre. ^ ex-officio 

Vice-President, Guaranty Trust Company of New York 

Dr. Joseph W. Roe, ex-officio 

Yale University 
Cfiairman, Historical Advisory Committee 
American Branch, The Newcomen Society 



[ 22 ] 




"General Dodge was a practical man. He thought his 
way through, before he rushed into action. He en- 
visioned the obstacles that might lie in the path mapped 
out, but at the same time envisioned ways to overcome 
such obstacles. Once his plan was set, he proceeded to 
carry it to completion with dispatch, resourcefulness, 
thoroughness, and courage. My wish is that the Union 
Pacific may always include in its managerial staff men 
of such a type." 

— George F. Ashby 
% 1^ 



I 23 I 




"After completion of the Union Pacific in 1869, 
Dodge, with the financial backing for a time of Thomas 
A. Scott, railroad financier of Philadelphia and Vice- 
President of The Pennsylvania Railroad, and later and 
more extensively with the backing of Jay Gould, pro- 
jected and constructed numerous railroad lines in the 
Southwest, among them the Texas & Pacific, parts of the 
Missouri-Kansas-Texas and the International & Great 
Northern, the Fort Worth & Denver City. Likewise, he 
acquired the Denver, Texas & Gulf, which became part 
of the Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf, organized in 1 890, 
and of which Dodge became president. 

"American railroad history long will honor the mem- 
ory of GrenvilJe M. Dodge of the Union Pacific." 



-George F. Ash by 



"^ 'i? 



24 i 




THE NEWCOMEN SOCIETY OF ENGLAND 
IN NORTH AMERICA 



BROADLY, this British Society has as its purposes: to increase 
an a'p'preciation of American-British traditions and ideals 
in the Arts and Sciences y especially in that bond of sym- 
pathy for the cultural and spiritual forces which are common to 
the two countries; andy secondly y to serve as another link in the 
intifnately friendly relations existing between Great Britain and 
the United States of America. 

The N ewcofnen Society centers its work in the history of 
Material Civilization y the history of: Industry y Inventiony En- 
gineeringy Transportationy the Utilities, Communication, Min- 
ing y Agriculturey Finance y Bankingy Economics y Education y and 
the Law — these and correlated historical fields. In shorty the 
background of those factors which have contributed or are con- 
tributing to the progress of Mankind, 

The best of British traditionSy British scholarshipy and British 
ideals stand back of this honorary society y whose headquarters 
are at London. Its name perpetuates the life and work of Thomas 
Newcomen (1663-1729)y the British pioneer y whose valuable 
contributions in improvements to the newly invented Steam 
Engine brought him lasting fame in the field of the Mechanic 
Arts. The Newcomen Engines y whose period of use was from 
1712 to 177 5 y paved a way for the Industrial Revolution. 
Newcomen^s inventive genius preceded by more than 50 years 
the brilliant work in Steam by the world-famous lames Watt, 



-^ 



'^'The roads you travel so briskly 
lead out of dim antiquity y 
and you study the fast chiefly because 
of its bearing on the living present 
and its 'promise for the future" 

t — ^LIEUTENANT GENERAL JAMES G. HARBORD, 

K.C.M.G., D.S.M., LL.D., U.S. ARMY (rET.) 

^American eMember of Council at London, 
The S^etvcovien Society of England 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
013 700 498 7 « 




